


Same Old Thing

by bessemerprocess



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Apocalypse, F/M, Post-Apocalyptic, casefic, end of the world comment ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-19 17:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man turns up dead. Teresa Lisbon and her team team ride into town to solve his murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Same Old Thing

Lisbon swings down from the horse without waiting for Jane's helping hand. It doesn't do to look weak at the start of a case, especially not in this new world.

She's gotten better at the horse thing, but she'll never look like the natural that Van Pelt is and Jane fakes so well. She and Cho and Rigsby are all capable these days. They can ride without falling off, even at a gallop and she's getting better at shooting from the saddle. Still, some days she miss the internal combustion engine more than she can say.

They'd gotten the call on this one a week ago. Sam Anderson--white, male, forty-five--was found dead in the commons of New California with only a small burn on the bottom of his foot and one on his hand marring his skin. New California is one of the larger settlements, mostly made up of people from the tech sector, people who liked electricity and television and the internet and were willing to work to get those things back.

There aren't many people left now, and a healthy man during harvest isn't someone any community would turn down, no matter how well they were doing for themselves. To find Anderson dead was a shock to the community, so it's not so surprising that they called in what is left of the CBI.

Lisbon has two goals these days: get through the day without losing any of her team, and keep whatever peace she can. They make the circuit up and down the coast, helping where they are wanted. There are some communities who only hold to their law, others who won't see justice dispensed by an unmarried woman, but for those who remember the old world fondly, Teresa Lisbon's badge is welcome sight.

"Agent Lisbon! Thank you for coming." Joanna Harrington welcomes them all warmly, spreading hugs and handshakes as she goes. She's part of New California's ruling council, but in the old days, she'd been a professor of computer science at CalTech. It isn't the first time they've been called in by New California, of all the new settlements they are perhaps the most interested in keeping to the old laws.

"What can you tell us?" Lisbon asks, her team gathered around her.

"Eric Holderly found Sam in the commons. Dr. Patel couldn't find a cause of death, just the burn on the bottom of Anderson's foot and hand. We had to burn the body, what with the heat wave, but Dr. Patel did as thorough an exam as we can manage and wrote it all up for you," Joanna says, as she walks them to the building that serves as the settlement's center of government.

"Last person to see him?" Cho asks.

"That's the problem. It's Eric Holderly. That's why we called you in. That night Sam and Eric had words. Eric says afterward he went back to his house, had a beer and fell asleep. There aren't any witnesses to confirm that, though. It seems suspicious that he was the last person to see Sam alive and the person who found the body, but of course, we have to know it was Eric for certain. He helped found this place and a lot of people are sure he is innocent. They'd be sure he was innocent if he'd killed Sam right in front of their faces, too though, so either way, we're looking at some serious internal dissent if things get out of hand," Joanna explains.

Jane smiles at her. "We'll see what we can do."

Jane is different in this new world of theirs. He gives Joanna the same charming smile as always, but it seems to Lisbon as if there is less darkness behind his eyes these days. Maybe the whole world really did have to end to give Jane some peace. She'd never say it out loud, but if that's what it took, well, maybe the end of the world wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"I'll take Cho and go talk to Holderly," Jane says, waiting for her ascent before he goes.

"Go," she says with a nods, and he does.

"Rigsby, take Van Pelt and go talk to the doctor."

"Got it, boss," he says and the two hurry off. They've been together since the end. Keeping up the illusion of a working part of the law enforcement system doesn't spread to fraternization regs even if she wanted it to. And really, Lisbon isn't going to stand in the way of them taking whatever happiness they can find.

Once her team is gone--and that's a sign of how stable New California is, normally no one is left alone--she turns to Joanna and says, "Fill me in on the political situation."

"Bryce Donovan brought Sam in, they knew each other in the old world. Sam did hardware work with some robotics firm that Bryce wrote software for. Now Sam mostly works on our security side, but he'd been helping with the harvest. I'll round up his harvest team during dinner so that you can talk to them all," Joanna says, and Lisbon nods for her to continue. "Anyway, Bryce and Eric were here way back at the beginning when they took over the Sam's Club. They've been best friends since high school, but Eric is better with the software nerds, and Bryce holds most of the academics, and if they break over this, one side is going to end up pushing the other out, even though neither of them holds a council seat anymore."

Lisbon nods. "Want to take me to talk to Bryce?"

"Sure," Joanna says and motions her out the door. "You know you guys are always welcome here. You should think about a permanent place to settle down."

"Can't do the job if people think we belong to a settlement. Our old world neutrality is one of the only things we have going for us," Lisbon replies with a smile. It's not the first time they've been invited to settle some place, not even the first time they've been invited to settle in New California. Rigsby and Van Pelt will take someone up on an offer soon, Van Pelt is starting to show and you can't raise a kid on horseback.

"And your Mr. Jane," Joanna says with a smirk. Jane's worked his charm up and down the California coast, but Lisbon's pretty sure he actively likes Joanna and her no nonsense attitude.

"Jane gets us shot at just as much as he actually solves cases." That might be a slight exaggeration, Jane is more careful these days not to leave a trail of enemies behind him. They have no jurisdictional right to push local off cases anymore, and they can't work if people won't let them in, so Jane has turned up the charm and down the confrontation, and so now they only get shot at every fifth or sixth case.

Joanna laughs anyway, and then leads Lisbon into another building.

"Bryce, Agent Lisbon is here," Joanna says.

Bryce looks up from his drafting table. "Hello, Lisbon," he says.

She's met Bryce a couple times before in passing, and in the old days that would've been enough for her to throw the case to another team, but there isn't another team anymore. "Mr. Donovan. Can I ask a few questions?"

"Sure, sit," he says gesturing to split rail chair leaning against the wall. Joanna busies herself in the background, and Lisbon pulls up the chair and sits.

She's about to ask her first question when Van Pelt enters. "Boss, Jane says he knows who did it."

"We've been here less than three hours," Lisbon replies. It's frustrating when Jane solves the case before she can even really start her work.

Van Pelt just shrugs. "It's Jane."

All four of them trek back out to the commons where Jane, Rigsby and Cho are standing, drawing a crowd.

"Already?" Lisbon whispers to Jane.

Jane just smiles, and says, "This is Alan Carson. Alan Carson used to be Evan McRay in the old world." Two men are holding his arms, but Carson looks defeated.

"Is this true?" she asks. She hates police work as a spectator sport, but she should be used it by now.

"Yes, ma'am," he murmurs.

"Evan McRay used to work with Sam Anderson. McRay embezzled copious amounts of money, which Donovan found out about and went to the police. Except then the world ended and neither McRay nor Anderson were worried about some worthless paper anymore. Isn't that right, McRay?" Jane says.

"That's right," the man replies, looking, if possible, even more miserable.

"So when you ran into Anderson here, you were surprised. Except, Anderson was a good guy, and so he told you he wasn't going to tell anyone. You even believed him. Except, one night, you found out that Anderson was sneaking out into the fields to meet with Eric over here," Jane says.

Eric turns bright red. "We weren't sneaking, not really."

"Evan here thought you were. It was just as obvious to him as it was to me that the fight you and Anderson was just a cover. He thought that Anderson was telling you all about him, about his old world crimes."

McRay nods, eyes still downcast.

"So Evan here snuck out into the fields after Anderson one night. Eric was going to be at the rendezvous, but Bryce here cornered him in the lab for a extra hour, because Bryce had made a break through on the secret project he's been working on."

"I did," Bryce pipes up. "But how did you know?"

Jane just smiles enigmatically and continues, "Evan here, confronts Anderson, Anderson tried to explain its not what he thinks, and once they'd reached a mutual agreement, Anderson reached out and touched the fence. And that's when he died."

Eric and Bryce both gasp at the same time.

"He was electrocuted!" Bryce exclaims.

"He was electrocuted?" Lisbon repeats, shaking her head.

"First person to be electrocuted in ten years I'd say." Jane shrugs.

"I was just testing a new battery system for the solar power," Bryce says, looking pained.

"No one is supposed to be out in the fields at night," Eric says. "And Sam wasn't supposed to meet me anywhere near the fence."

Bryce nods. "We needed to see if the battery would explode when we went to recharge it, so it needed to drain all night. We'd been having such problems with the coyotes, I figured electrifying the fences would only help," he adds.

"So when Anderson touched the fence..." Rigsby starts.

"...he touched live wires," Van Pelt finishes.

"And that is how Sam Anderson died. It wasn't actually murder at all."

"Wait, how did Sam's body end up in the commons?" Joanna asks.

"I wanted to get him help," McRay says. "I dragged him halfway to the settlement, but I just couldn't move him any further and he didn't have a pulse. I was going to wait a few days and then disappear again."

"I found him in the middle of the field," Eric admits. "I didn't want to explain what I was doing out there in the middle of the night, but I didn't want Sam's body to be taken by the coyotes either, so I moved him to the commons. I knew someone as following Sam, and I thought that they probably killed him, but if I left him in the field it might just look like an accident. In town, someone would have to figure out who killed him. I just wanted him to have some justice." Eric scuffs his feet on the ground. "I didn't know it really was an accident."

"I'm so sorry," Bryce says. "I should've been clearer that I was hooking up the prototype to the fences."

"You did tell me. I just wasn't listening."

"And there you have it," Jane says. "No one actually murdered anyone."

The crowd disperses and Joanna invites them to lunch, but they wave her off, and promise to come back some other time.

Once they are up on their horses again and headed out of town, Lisbon turns to Jane and asks, "How did you know."

Jane grins, says, "McRay had soil under his finger nails," and rides past her before she can ask what that has to do with anything. Somethings not even the end of the world can change.


End file.
